Wednesday Wa Pic - Snatch the California roll from my hand

 Awaken...and try the sashimi.

Wednesday Wa Pic - Milk Movie!

 Sure, it's a niche genre of film, but its fans are steadfast. And strong-boned.

Wednesday Wa Pic - tea time

Because if there's one thing I hate, it's the general tightness you find in most teas.

Even in dog years, I am immature

My dog, in dog years, is my age now, which probably explains, on sunny days, his lying naked on the lawn.

I understand the impulse.

The dog and I, we do a lot of the same things now. We build our day around meals, we find butterflies more entrancing than television, and by eight o'clock our eyelids get heavier than the plot of a CSI episode.

Our eyesight, and memory, isn't so great. This week I took an old plastic pony my children had outgrown and put it out at the curb. The dog spied it out the front window, mistaking it for a dog brazenly marking his territory.

He growled and growled at the interloper, despite having, just two minutes before, been on the driveway when I carried the pony past him to the curb.

So I flung open the front door and he bolted out at top speed to confront the infidel. He bounced around for about two seconds like a boxer looking for an opening, and then went "Oh. It's plastic. I was just...uh...coming out to sniff the lawn here. Mmm. That's some fragrant grass, just as I suspected. I'll be going back in now."

When he is happiest, he goes in the back yard and rolls around in his own poop.

We differ in this respect.

But we share the same middle-aged expression, that gaze which says yeah, I've seen a few things, sniffed them too, but it takes a lot to impress me these days. A squirrel, for instance. Or a video of a squirrel.

Unlike me, Skipper still runs like the wind. He does not have that internal self-governor which warns "Careful, you'll rip your Achilles, your knees aren't what they used to be, is your heart really up to this?" No. Squirrel? Boom. Gone. See you after I've shown this varmint who's still got the stuff.

After a bath he races around the house like a dog afire, ripping through the rooms as if attempting to escape cleanliness itself. Like me, there is some puppy in him yet.

I make a unique tsk-tsk sound to alert Skipper to the presence of a squirrel. Even in the house, if I make this sound he will tense, look at me as if to ask "Really? Game on?" and then he will bolt out the doggie door.

I really shouldn't play tricks on a dog his age. But at my age, I get my entertainment where I can.

. . .

Skipper, vigilant for the next plastic interloper

Trip to Mars for married couple is proposed

Dennis Tito, the millionaire space tourist, has recently created a foundation which is seeking—I kid you not—a married couple for a 501-day circuit around Mars; a trip even Jackie Gleason would find ambitious.

Due to the cramped, claustrophobic conditions, Tito feels a married couple would handle it better than a pair of strangers. But here is how I think it would go:

Day 1.

Husband: This is amazing. I can see North and South America all at once.

Wife: I never realized just what a fragile jewel the Earth is. I am overcome.


Day 30.

Wife: Do we have any Twix left?

Husband: No.

Wife: You effing* ate the last Twix? There were, like, 20 left yesterday.

Husband: Who's counting?

Wife: Grrrrr.


Day 100.

Husband: Is that Earth? That little dot by the three white dots? I can't tell.

Wife: Who am I, Galileo?

Husband: I forgot my glasses.

Wife: Well, there's a shock.


Day 250.

Husband: Mars is huge. I never knew it was so big. Did you know it was so big?

Wife: You know what's big? My craving for a Twix right now.


Day 300.

Husband: Have you seen my iPad charger? I was on the last level of Pizzas vs. Skeletons.

Wife: You mean the iPad charger sticking out of your shirt pocket?

Husband: You don't have to be snarky.

Wife: The whole universe is out your window and you're playing games?

Husband: You see the Milky Way, you've seen the Milky Way.


Day 350.

Wife: Did you do today's experiment yet? With the salt crystals?

Husband: That was an experiment? I thought it was for the pasta.

Wife: You ate the experiment?

Husband: Did anyone ever tell you you're kind of negative?

Wife: You left me some pasta, though, right?

Husband:

Wife: Perfect.


Day 450.

Husband: Divorce should be a last step, not a first step.

Wife: Dare me to open that hatch. Dare me.


Day 500.

Husband: Ah, Earth. One more day. When we get home, I'm buying you a whole case of Twix.

Wife: Yeah, you are. So...how are we going to spin this?

Husband: It was a spectacular journey, not just of our solar system but of ourselves, yadda-yadda.

Wife: I almost killed you in your sleep.

Husband: I almost let you.

Wife: Look at how blue it all is. What a jewel.

Husband: Priceless.


*In space, no one can hear you curse.

. . .